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Book Description

Rumors floating around the Internet claim that the ruins of King Solomon’s Temple—the First Temple of Jerusalem—are hidden away on an island in the South Pacific. Intrigued, a New York-based reporter went to investigate. Trekking across the idyllic Solomon Islands, he didn’t find the archaeological trove he was hoping to discover. But what he encountered instead was perhaps even more surprising: self-described Melanesian Israelites with apocalyptic visions, dreamers guarding ruins of unknown but ancient provenance, a warlord who rallied an ethnic militia under the Star of David, and a web of connections to the modern state of Israel. Across time zones and cultures, it turns out there’s more than you’d expect joining these two tiny nations.

Praise for Solomon’s Island:

“The stylish expeditionary prose of 19th-century adventurers has found a new seductive voice in Matthew Fishbane, whose madcap adventure takes him to the outback among the Solomon’s one-thousand islands in the Pacific—literally in the clutches of a guy named Stalin, a forest guide known as Dudley, and a third explorer described as ‘a Daguerreotype in negative of a full-bearded Darwin’—as they head into perhaps the most remote jungle not only on the planet but, surreally, on the Internet as well, struggling to find King Solomon’s Temple in what should be the last place to look, and yet … somewhere, Stanley and Livingstone are fuming with envy.”—Jack Hitt, contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, contributor to This American Life, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, and Wired, and author, most recently, of Bunch of Amateurs: A Search for the American Character

Rumors floating around the Internet claim that the ruins of King Solomon’s Temple—the First Temple of Jerusalem—are hidden away on an island in the South Pacific. Intrigued, a New York-based reporter went to investigate. Trekking across the idyllic Solomon Islands, he didn’t find the archaeological trove he was hoping to discover. But what he encountered instead was perhaps even more surprising: self-described Melanesian Israelites with apocalyptic visions, dreamers guarding ruins of unknown but ancient provenance, a warlord who rallied an ethnic militia under the Star of David, and a web of connections to the modern state of Israel. Across time zones and cultures, it turns out there’s more than you’d expect joining these two tiny nations.

Praise for Solomon’s Island:

“The stylish expeditionary prose of 19th-century adventurers has found a new seductive voice in Matthew Fishbane, whose madcap adventure takes him to the outback among the Solomon’s one-thousand islands in the Pacific—literally in the clutches of a guy named Stalin, a forest guide known as Dudley, and a third explorer described as ‘a Daguerreotype in negative of a full-bearded Darwin’—as they head into perhaps the most remote jungle not only on the planet but, surreally, on the Internet as well, struggling to find King Solomon’s Temple in what should be the last place to look, and yet … somewhere, Stanley and Livingstone are fuming with envy.”—Jack Hitt, contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, contributor to This American Life, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, and Wired, and author, most recently, of Bunch of Amateurs: A Search for the American Character

The best thing I can say about this irelevant little book is that it was short. As an anthropologist by training, and one well read about Micronesia, and Jewish, to boot, I assumed I would find something of substance when I read the hyped revue in "Tablet Magazine." No such luck. The ignorance and naivete that results in the existence of the most idiotic cargo cults, for which the Solomon Islands are prime territory, is understandable there. Why anybody from the outside world would take any of it seriously just because it used Solomon as a buzz word evades me. That there was virtually no conclusion to the search was no surprise. That's not the author's fault. What is his fault is snookering in interest from those who feel some relevance about King Solomon to pay for his little journey to one of the worst places on the planet. He was too kind. It's a corrupt, malaria infested rat hole with earthquakes he never mentions. I only hope nobody is mislead into making the mistake of going there. When he told them he was Jewish he's lucky they didn't think that made him kosher and eat him.

This is a crazy story about Israeli-Malaitan ties. Prompted by the hunt for ancient ruins and a mythical common past, this fascinating journey in search for lost Israelites in the South Pacific evolves into an entertaining but sobering recount of the lasting effects of colonialism and the real politics of foreign-aid on the small Island.Great read on kindle but doesn't include images. Make sure to checkout also the atavist version to see the pictures: [...]After reading Solomon's Island I'm eagerly waiting for next Fishbane's book.

While the story was a bit slow to read, the overall impression was good and interesting. While the author started out with an "old wife"s" tale of the lost tribes of Israel, the story itself showed how people, regardless of where they live, try to connect to others, both by history and common religious beliefs. Overall, it was worth reading.

Fishbane writes here in an elegant style about the concept of islands, literally and figuratively. For unknown reasons, perhaps only because of the name, the idea that a lost temple of Solomon exists on the Solomon islands has filtered into parts of that tiny and far-off South Pacific nation. This is an example of the invasion of extra-societal concepts into the ways of the Solomon islanders, and as human history has repeatedly demonstrated, this sort of invasion of alien species often ends up destroying the ecosystem to which it transplants. Other invasions in the Solomons have occured - indeed an important part of the history of the Solomon Islands is the role it played as WWII battleground between Japan and the US - and others are ocurring, ironically from other island states, specifically Israel, which is moving to establish economic ties with the Solomon Islands for geopolitical reasons. Fishbane searches for the lost temple and in doing so explores these stories; the search is a serio-comic amble through the paradisical jungles of the islands. Behind the good humor of the voyage lies the serious story of a people who may well be engulfed by the global economy and culture.

It's hard to describe this piece... part history, part anthropology, part geopolitical analysis, but much more than all of that, an incredible adventure story full of unforgettable details and surprising twists, all told with a forthrightness that counterbalances the potential for exoticization. I will never go to the Solomon Islands, and in fact never gave them a moment's thought until I read this. But Fishbane's account, like any good reportage, made me curious, and then satisfied that curiosity. With his eye for detail, his apparent diligence as a researcher, his storytelling abilities, his humor, and his willingness to put himself in extremely uncomfortable and sometimes downright dangerous situations, Fishbane proves himself to be the perfect guide for those of us who will only ever make this journey vicariously.